Too stupid to care?

I saw an Instagram story this week, posted by a young man in his 20’s. He decided to set himself a challenge. He was going on a holiday for ten days, challenging himself to buy the cheapest plane tickets, each day, to wherever they took him. He was starting at Luton Airport and ending there…I suppose. His first flight was to Poland and cost £10.

As I watched, the two thoughts that went through my mind were that, firstly, what kind of holiday is just about flying every day and, secondly, why wasn’t he bothered about climate change.

The most interesting things about his story, however, were the comments.

Following the usual ‘well done, fella’ and ‘Cool!’ and not far down the list was a single comment asking why he wasn’t bothered about climate change. This was followed by the usual, single word reply, ‘Yawn.’ This I found interesting from an extinction point of view. How on earth could anyone think the possible end of humanity was boring?*

Moving on from that little gem, I found quite a few comments saying that the plane was going there anyway, whether he was on it or not and calling the climate change commenter a moron. Or worse. It was this that got me a bit riled. Imagine thinking you’d scored a clever point by bringing up the main problem.

Mirinda and I often discuss the fact that, if people had to pay the real cost of a plane ticket, they wouldn’t go. This, in turn, would stop the plane travelling so cheaply. Eventually, the plane would stop going there. But, of course, most people think they deserve cheap air flights so they can go wherever they want for a pittance.

And, obviously, the flight companies want to make a lot of money because money is way more important than survival.

Increasing the price to a proper one would, of course, mean that air travel would, eventually, be the preserve of the rich. Or so people say. And, perhaps they’re right, but is it better to be alive than to be able to fly to Poland for £10?

Naturally, being old, I’ll not be around for the worst of it, but the young will. There was a report out this week saying that last year the planet had reached 1.5° above pre-industrial levels, making it the hottest year on record. For those at the back who don’t know, 1.5° is the tipping point; the point at which there’s no going back.

Also, for those at the back who think they know, of course the climate has been hotter in the past. It’s also been colder. For instance, 750 million years ago, the planet was encased in ice. And, of course, for billions of years, the planet didn’t have a breathable (for us) atmosphere, and it was really, really super hot.

These extremes were gradually reached and passed, allowing things to grow and evolve, adapt and survive. Well, not everything. Extinction events have also come and gone. And not just because of big space rocks creating the Gulf of Mexico (or the Gulf of America, if you are a Trumpist).

I think a lot of people have no idea how time works. A simple analogy then: If you consider a plane and how long it takes to build then decide to cut a few corners in order to cut costs and/or time, it’s not going to work very well. In fact, it may fall out of the sky when the wings fall off. Still, you can sell tickets to people for £10 so that’s okay.

While back here on Earth, people are saying that the planet was 3° hotter than pre-industrial days a mere 10,000 years ago (give or take a few) when we were living on the planet and, in fact, making jolly cities and domesticating all sorts of flora and fauna, in a headlong dash towards the Industrial Revolution.

The thing is though, while geologically speaking, 10,000 years is a pretty short time, it’s not as short as just over 100 years which is how long we’ve been filling the atmosphere with the exhaust from fossil fuels. This gives living things very little opportunity to evolve. Well, apart from insects, bacteria and the like. Things with a short lifespan. Whoever said that the planet would be inherited by cockroaches was probably right.

Then, also this week, I read a story in the Guardian concerning the UK Labour government’s decision to create a big old data centre, essentially for a huge AI engine to help rule the population. AI data centres need a lot of water to cool them because, all that artificial thinking creates a lot of heat.

But where should they put it? Of course, there’s the new Abingdon reservoir, which was built because of severe water shortages in the southeast of England. It should go there because, well, what do the humans need water for? Big tech and our robotic overlords are much more deserving.

The human race is clearly headed for an extinction of its own making. It’s a kind of suicide for greed. After all, the people making all the money are not going to be immune to a planet that can’t support them. I guess they all figure they’ll take one of Elon Musk’s rockets to some other planet though, another big story this week was how his latest Starship upgrade exploded eight minutes after lift off, littering the planet with bits of molten rubbish.

Self-imposed extinction is an interesting concept. I’ll never understand that kind of stupidity.

* Another news story this week was about the bots that are flooding social media with climate change denial information, creating a massive echo chamber for people to fall into as dictated by the algorithm. This shapes your opinions for you. Which means your opinions are not really your own. Maybe the yawn comment above was created by a bot. You can’t know for sure. It’s important to question everything and wonder why someone is denying something that is obviously true. As someone once said, “Follow the money.

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